French Lessons with Donna Tartt

Apart from the fact that it is again going to be really hard to get back into the discipline of writing, what have I learned from my visit to France last week?

• Normandy is a continuation of Dorset (geologists may tell me I am entirely wrong) and that is no bad thing. I am still capable of writing an ambiguous sentence
• Red Squirrels abound.
• Driving on the back roads is like being in the 1950's, but you can go faster and engines are more reliable.
• My father landed tanks at Utah Beach in WW2 when he was twenty years old. (But he never mentioned it until I said we'd been there - I wish I'd known beforehand. Do fathers ever talk to sons?)
• Language is not everything - but it helps. A smile goes an awfully long way. It's a myth that the French habitually laugh at the English.

WHAT I REALLY LEARNED is not to be daunted by other writers. Enjoy holiday reading. Come back wanting to write as well as Donna Tartt.